Well, I survived, and actually had a pretty good time. More pictures are to come, but to get you started, I offer you the name tag I had to wear the entire night. Did I not mention I had huge hair?! I really hate it when people spell my name wrong, too. They sure managed to spell it right when they charged my credit card, but when it comes to my directory listing and my name tag, they omitted an ‘n’ for me.
Ok, so Saturday started off with the picnic. I went with my best friend, Amber, her husband, daughter, and her husband’s friend. We showed up about an hour after it started (fashionably late, of course), and when we first drove up, we didn’t see anyone there. We really thought we missed it, until Amber had the idea to go check out the pavilion at the East end of the park. We walked in, and there they were. About 30-40 of my classmates, their spouses, and a few kids running around. I looked right and spouted off a few names of people I recognized to Amber, and she looked left and did the same. We then assessed that there weren’t any chairs for us to sit and eat lunch, so we just walked out.
Ok, that was weird. But after we laid out a blanket under a tree, we saw two of our friends from our high school group walk up — David and Shabaka. David was the coordinator of the whole thing. We chatted with them a bit, and then another guy came up. I decided to get into the whole ‘reunion routine’, and I said ‘gosh, you look really familiar, but I don’t remember your name’. He said, ‘Yeah, well I remember you, Lynnette’. He turned out to be one of the bad boys from school, and had really changed his appearance. I was pretty surprised that a bad boy remembered me, lil’ miss goodie two-shoes.
David then gathered everyone back in the pavilion and had us go around the room and introduce ourselves and say what we’ve been doing for the last 10 years. It was really interesting, and a lot of people seemed to be doing well for themselves. A lot of people were there with their spouses, but a good number were stag, which made me feel better.
When they got around to me, I dove into my spiel, and all of a sudden, my knees were shaking, my voice was wavering, and I totally forgot to mention my graduate degree. I was pretty pissed at myself, thinking that I can give presentations to hundreds of people professionally, but there was something about these people that really got to me.
My ex-boyfriend from my freshman year was there, Elvis. He was looking really good, and was alone, so I went up to talk to him. I got in ‘So, you live in Nevada, too’ (he lives in Vegas) before another girl came up to say hello to me.
Other than that, there wasn’t much exciting about the picnic. We rushed to Amber’s house, got ready, and then came back into town. I wore a black cocktail dress with red flowers on it, and Amber gave me her ‘slutty shoes’ for the night — 3 inch strappy black heels. They really did look hot, but I wobbled a bit in them.
On the 45 minute drive back into Albuquerque from Amber’s house, I frantically tried to paint my toes red to match my dress. Amber did her best to warn me of bumps, but by the time I was done, I looked like my toes were bleeding severely. It was a horrible mess. Thankfully, I didn’t get any on Amber’s truck…
We were running pretty late, and had scheduled to have our make-up done at the mall. I called the make-up counters to tell them we were running late, and mine cancelled out on me. So while Amber got her makeover, I ended up doing my make-up in the truck, glopping it on over the sunscreen I had worn to the picnic. When I was finished, I went in to find her, and thankfully, the woman doing her make-up gave me some nail polish remover so that I could get all of the paint off of the skin around my toes. It seriously looked like a two year old had attempted to paint them.
We showed up about an hour late, and after we checked in, we stood in the entry. It was pretty nerve racking. I recognized people. They looked at me, I looked at them, and none of us moved. I then told Amber we were heading straight to the bar… While at the bar, a few girls caught up with us. One was a girl I hung around with a lot (Liz), and she looked GREAT. I actually didn’t recognize her at first. David then found us and offered to save us seats at a table, which helped ease my initial panic.
I told ‘David’ stories all through dinner for David’s wife, and he countered with a few stories about me that I’d forgotten (namely about when I put tampons all over his truck to embarrass him. I had put the instructions under his windshield wiper. Don’t worry, they weren’t used!!!). I reminded him of when he put porn pictures on stakes all throughout my parents’ lawn and then put a jock strap in our basketball hoop. He remembered walking into one of my mom’s hanging plants and breaking the terracotta pot with his (huge) head. And then Amber brought up the time we were trying to drag Shabaka down the hall at school, and he started screaming ‘Sexual Harassment!’ at the top of his lungs.
After dinner, we all sat at our tables and peered at each other. No one was really getting up to mingle. For a while, Amber and I buried our noses in the ‘Memory Book’, which had one page bios of a lot of our classmates. Our favorite was a girl that became a stripper, and claimed that she had been on the 10th Anniversary Jenny Jones Show titled ‘I used to be lame, but now this shorty has got game!’ She was cute, but the funny thing was that no one remembered her at all, including me.
I ran into the twin brother of my senior-year boyfriend. I was a bit disappointed that my ex wasn’t there, but his brother, Mike, was rather entertaining. Mike, who had been in football and was a bit of a preppy boy, is now a professional bull rider and announces at rodeos. He was all decked out in cowboy apparel. He was really sweet, and gave me the scoop on his brother, who now weighs 275 lbs and has a 7 year old son. I will soon post a picture of me two-stepping with Mike to Funky Cold Medina. I was laughing so hard I nearly peed myself.
Elvis made my heart skip a beat when he walked by and said ‘you look really good’. I later made my way over to talk to him, and he interrupted me mid-sentence to go talk to another guy. No ‘good-bye’ or ‘I’ll be right back’. He literally just up and left. So after inflating my ego, he successfully deflated it again. I was back to normal.
I also hung out a bit with a guy that came out of the closet when he was 20 and is now a chef. Amber and I had a blast seeing him, and dancing disco with him. He put on some great moves to ‘Brick House’.
We did the Electric Slide. We did the Chicken Dance. We made a train throughout the room. In essence, we made complete arses out of ourselves, but had a good time doing it. There was even a bit of break-dancing going on.
Here are a few quotes from the Memory Book. And if you went to Manzano, I’m making copies of it (I paid $15, but want to get my money’s worth), so shoot me an e-mail if you want a copy.
From the valedictorian, who now works at NASA: “I had the opportunity to do research in microgravity two-phase flow and flew an experiment on the NASA KC-135… I have been working in the Propulsion Research Center…I am doing experimental and theoretical work in nuclear power and propulsion systems that are planned for use in outer planetary missions…” (OK, now I feel really stupid. Am I the only person that needs a translator for that?!)
In a hand-written submission: “I enjoy computer tech.”
From a stay-at-home-mom: “I had (baby’s name) at home and underwater with no drugs; it was worth it…I plan to stay home, have more children at home and underwater and home-school them all.”
The bitchy class president: “Now I practice commercial and consumer litigation… Want to sue anyone?” Yeah, we still don’t like her.
From a girl I don’t remember: “I have played Mud Volleyball… for the past four years…”
From the cute guy that was always a bit slow: “I have been a proud parent of a health son for one month now.”
So I survived. I am glad I went, and would do it over again. I felt really good about my accomplishments, and felt good about the way I looked after all of my hard work this year. I even treated myself to some cheesecake and two alcoholic drinks. That may sound tame to you, but after 8 months of sobriety, those two drinks got me pretty looped!
To come later this week: pics of the reunion and of me and my Goddaughter, Kylie.
